Other than charging for different contents is the same thing?

I see the catch but not the deal

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They're not the same.

Xbox Live Gold membership allows you to play multiplayer Xbox games online, and gives you access to a couple of older games for free per month. These free "Games With Gold" titles change every few weeks.

You can get a free Xbox Live membership that allows you to connect online to download game updates/patches and use certain online Xbox apps like Youtube/Hulu/Netflix/HBO/etc., but you're limited to single player only Xbox games unless you have a Gold account.

Xbox Game Pass is a further add-on membership that gives you access to a large library of Xbox games (both older and newer). You can play any of them for no additional cost beyond the Game Pass membership fee. It's kinda like Netflix Streaming, only for Xbox games.

1. Do I keep the downloaded games forever in my profile/account catalog as with current Live Gold?

2. Most important since I have no CC, can I purchase a 12 months card/code and be done for a year or must I fork on a monthly basis?

I hardly use the XBO, trying to breath some life into it. Kids are gone/ grown up.

Thnks for the info.

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I don't use Game Pass, but I would say that you probably don't get to keep them forever like Gold games. The Xbox Game Pass website talks about how if you love a game, you can buy it at a discounted rate. So that sounds like you have to continue your membership to retain access to those games.

As for the yearly memberships, it looks like you can get Xbox Game Pass prepaid cards/codes, but only for 1 month increments.

You might also just look into buying a prepaid Xbox gift card/code with the amount needed for a year of Game Pass, put the code in to upload that amount to your Xbox account, and then buy multiple months worth of Game Pass membership using your Xbox account balance.

If you have Live Gold, you can preview the list of games offered in the Pass service and see if any or how many appeal to you